I don't consult on a management level, we helped with automation implementation. Specifically how automation systems could be designed to solve problems that the client's engineers already found and worked closely to provide expertise and band width that they currently didn't have. I've worked with bad consultants (currently have one that I gotta keep tabs on cause his ideas are stupid and insane) and what we did was very different, far more collaborative approach.

Automation adoption is mostly driven by the current condition of the labor market (unemployment at 3.5% in the US with similar issues in other countries). Automation adoption has largely correlated with job growth not loss. Everyone seems to forget that offshoring is the reason for the majority of job loss to the US manufacturing core. In fact, anecdotally as an engineer who consults in manufacturing, automation is allowing many companies to bring jobs back to the US since the chaos of Covid has shown the dangers of an optimized supply chain.

Key word here is also "could". We could automate most industrial applications but the tech is unreliable and there's a lot of limitations that drastically increase costs.

Furthermore most domestic tasks aren't done by an employee so this just represents an opportunity for people to get time back, not an impact to jobs.

Gonna be honest, for the scratchy throat dry cough, honey works better anyway.

Right, which is why I think we need to move past capitalism. Capitalism does some stuff really well (the whole problem of scarcity as seen by developments of industrialization and automation) but even Adam Smith saw the dangers of wealth being concentrated at the top and wrote about the duty of the government to regulate industry and capital. AI and automation may finally force us to change our perspective on the notion that profit is the only good thing and start focusing on the well being of the people, since that is the government's primary goal. We see right now how profits over people hurt the economy as the largest and wealthiest corporations record record profits while the inflation they created is sucking the middle and lower class dry.

This simply isn't happening the way you said. If it did we'd be at record low employment, but unemployment is the lowest since the 50's.

Most manufacturing jobs were lost due to offshoring not automation improvements. Automation adoption has correlated with job growth, the jobs just change.

Thing is demand for a lot of what you listed hasn't dropped despite there being several tools to massively improve productivity. We've seen huge increases in productivity since the 50's and we are now at 3.5% unemployment. I'm not familiar with cardiovascular specialist demand but I am an engineer.

The decrease in manufacturing wasn't driven by automation so much as it's been driven by offshoring manufacturing to other countries. As an engineer who works in automation, demand for engineers is still super high even with tools and software that vastly improve productivity. From a labor perspective we are automating many jobs but only out of a need because there aren't enough people willing to work at the wage we offer.

Which brings me to another point, my bigger concern is wages not jobs. Wages have not correlated with productivity. While this is related it's not the same issue and some solutions are similar and others are not. The wage issue is a problem now, not some theoretical future decades from now.

I completely see the net difference being negative in the long run but AI and machine learning is still a ways off.

We also don't know what kind of jobs will pop up completely unrelated to this whole scare. And there's also a pretty big labor shortage right now that's only likely to worsen. Robots replaced a lot of factory employees but now there's entirely new jobs in software and automation. Point being there's likely a small net negative but tbh I'm not really concerned.

The bigger concern isn't about jobs but wages and matching productivity. Traditionally capitalists take improvements to production for themselves and don't spread the profits to employees.

Point being there's no reason to panic on jobs yet, but wage laws need to be updated including a reasonable UBI from corporate and wealth taxes. This isn't necessarily to do with job loss but wage stagnation that's been ongoing and a far more immediate issue.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I think it needs to be reduced, but of that 27% (per US gov stats on CO2 for transportation) only 41% is passenger cars. So really, passenger vehicles are only 11% of CO2 emissions. It's not nothing but it's also not the largest contributor.

Point being it can be nonzero and still be effective. We don't need to ban all ICE options, we just need most people to move to alternatives so that the few people who have legitimate need for ICE can still use it.

Banning ICE use in city centers makes sense but the infrastructure can't support EVs outside of those ranges, comfortably, yet. Mass adoption to the point that the majority of vehicles sold (80-90%) would be enough that other areas of climate change would easily become a priority.

Even now, what is, 100 companies(?) produce 70% of the world's emissions? There's so much more that's needed than simply blanket bans on cars. If we can get emissions down from other areas we'd see significant improvements such that the small number of ICE (Hybrid) vehicles sold for rural transportation or as rentals for road trips wouldn't be a concern.

Also, I don't think it's much of a wake up call. Many major auto makers have already announced discontinuation of ICE development and plans to convert to EV in the next decade or less.

If Human consumption stagnates, so does production. Production is determined by consumption, that's why in a supply side economic model we get these stupid boom bust cycles where economic downturn is just expected after a few years of growth. Difference is that a population drop wouldn't be a typical bust cycle and would more than likely break many economic systems.

But I'm not an economist and this is just my understanding of how these systems work.

Population growth drives consumerism in many if not most capitalist societies. We're already seeing the panic as population curves near negative growth.

Yeah, pretty much any sport is dangerous. Can't count how many times I almost died or mangled myself skiing or on ATVs. Wouldn't have stopped me though.

AI can't operate in a vacuum either. Most of these systems are able to create confident sounding answers but when it comes to actual creativity and innovation they fall flat. There's some easy stuff they can do but without supervision they're going to fuck a lot of it up.

Among certain circles maybe but mainstream media doesn't sell hope, it sells doom and gloom. AI will do a lot of good things.

Speed has doubled in a year, my guess is speed will likely continue to increase.

Better than herbicides that poison us and the environment.